http://www.boston.com/dailynews/317/world/Trade_Center_survivor_among_th:.shtml

Trade Center survivor among the many Dominicans dead in New York plane crash

By Ian James, Associated Press, 11/13/2001 02:13

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) Hilda Yolanda Mayor escaped the World Trade Center attack long enough to board the jet that crashed into a New York neighborhood on Monday.

''She was my treasure,'' her mother, Virginia Hernandez, said from the family's Dominican home, where relatives wailed their grief.

The Sept. 11 suicide hijackings on the Trade Center, where Mayor worked in a first-floor restaurant, left 41 Dominicans among the dead and missing. The anguish of victims' cries through Las Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo indicated the American Airlines crash has taken a toll even closer to home. Flight 587 from New York's Kennedy Airport to Santo Domingo carried 260 people, mostly Dominicans.

''Today is worse than the 11th,'' said Leonidas Araujo Quesada, manager of an airport cafe. ''On the 11th, there were people crying, but it was for everybody. Today it is for Dominicans.''

About half a million Dominicans live in New York, one of its largest immigrant groups, according to consular officials.

Mayor worked at the Au Bon Pain restaurant on the first floor of one of the Trade Center towers and escaped unharmed after the Sept. 11 attack

Like many others, she had built a life firmly rooted in two worlds: a U.S. citizen who worked in Manhattan, she also stayed in touch with relatives in her Caribbean birthplace near San Pedro de Macoris.

The 26-year-old had planned to vacation with her mother and her two children, who had arrived from New York two weeks earlier.

''We were going to make a meal. We were going to have all the family together,'' Hernandez said.

It was one of many plans that evaporated as lives were cut short Monday.

''Not the child, please not the child!'' sobbed Germania Brito, who was at the airport to meet her sister Mariana Flores and husband John with their 2-year-old son, Isaias.

President Hipolito Mejia declared three days of national mourning.

Dozens of relatives came to Santo Domingo's airport for the official passenger list. As the victims became known, shrieks echoed as men collapsed in tears and women sobbed uncontrollably. Psychologists were on hand for counseling.

''Oh my God!'' screamed Miriam Fajardo, when it was confirmed that her sister, Norma Lilian Baloi, and three nephews, were aboard. ''I hadn't seen them in eight years. Now they're gone.''

It was not immediately known what caused the plane to break apart and crash in flames into a waterfront neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York after takeoff.

While many assumed the worst, Eduardo Fresola was told his brother, Jose Antonio Nicolas Fresola, missed the flight because his 7-year-old sister got lost in the airport on her way back from the bathroom.

''I can't believe it! He wasn't on the plane!'' exclaimed Fresola. ''He's alive. He's safe.''

Relatives of some victims were ushered behind a plastic barrier.

Others were left without an answer. ''What we want is the list of those who got on the plane, and they don't have it,'' said Saide Lara, 28, who was seeking her aunt, Ivelisse Goris. ''They've told us that we have to wait.''

Ministers and priests visited those who were grieving. Tearful relatives took comfort in hugging one another.

''I woke up early just to greet them,'' said Melida Reinoso, who was expecting her husband and son. ''Why did this happen?''

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001

Answers

Bound to happen, with 50,000 people working in those buildings. Heard on the news yesterday that one of the houses burned belonged to a man who lost his son at Cantor Fitzgerald. Don't know if the man was in the house when the plane hit.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2001